NDA has just a single minority community MP in 18th Lok Sabha
Despite the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) having 293 members of Parliament (MPs) in the 18th Lok Sabha, neither it nor its dominant partner, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has representation from the Muslim, Christian and Sikh communities.
The BJP has just a lone member from a minority community—Kiren Rijiju, who is a Buddhist, and who retained his seat of Arunachal West.
This stands in stark contrast to the opposition INDIA coalition, whose 235 MPs comprise 7.9 per cent Muslims, 5 per sent Sikhs and 3.5 per cent Christians.
The BJP did field minority community (non-Hindu) candidates in the general election, but none of them except Kiren Rijiju won. The party fielded one Muslim, one Christian (both in Kerala) and seven Sikh candidates (six in Punjab and one in Bengal), but all of them lost.
Thus, the NDA, though governing a religiously diverse country like India, unfortunately, has not been able to garner enough support for its minority community candidates to be able to elect them to the Lok Sabha. This is likely the result of the rabid pro-Hindu stance that the BJP has been professing over the last 10 years.
Among the independent MPs elected in 2024, there are four members from minority communities—two Sikhs and two Muslims.
In the Modi cabinet though, there are five ministers from minority communities—Hardeep Singh Puri (BJP – Rajya Sabha MP) and Ravneet Singh Bittu (BJP – yet to become an MP), both Sikhs, George Kurian (BJP – yet to become an MP), a Christian, Kiren Rijiju (BJP – Lok Sabha MP) and Ramdas Athawale (Republican Party of India (Athawale) – Rajya Sabha MP), both Buddhists.
